


The Grass is Always Greener

by icbiwf



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 10:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icbiwf/pseuds/icbiwf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what happens, people always want what they don't have. AU - Prim and Peeta aren't reaped, but that doesn't necessarily mean things are any better. Written for Prompts in Panem round 4. Prompt: Envy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 74

74.

Gale knocked on the heavy wooden door at the back of the bakery. The front of the shop was still dark, but he knew the baker was usually up and working by this time of the morning. Especially on this morning.

Sure enough, a moment later the door opened to reveal a squat, broad-shouldered man with thinning blond hair. "Oh, I wasn't expecting you this morning," Mr. Mellark said.

"I have a squirrel," Gale said. "I was hoping to trade for a couple of rolls."

"Well, we haven't made any rolls yet this morning," the baker replied. "How about a fresh loaf instead?"

Gale tried to contain his surprise. He usually only traded for day-old loaves, and even then they cost more than just a squirrel. "That's fine," he said as neutrally as he could manage.

The older man turned back into the bakery. "Peeta!" he called. "Bring me one of those loaves!"

Gale looked past the baker, and could see one of his sons - Peeta, he assumed - just taking a tray of bread loaves out of one of the ovens. "Okay, Dad," the boy called back.

Gale watched the younger boy, and he felt his face redden. Gale spent his whole life hunting and trapping and scraping and struggling just to feed himself and his family, meanwhile this kid had everything handed to him. As he carried the tray from the oven to a work table, he held in his arms enough bread to feed Gale's family for a week. Maybe two. And it was just the barest beginning of how much food this kitchen would turn out today. And the shop was only open for half the day today.

Gale couldn't help but envy the stocky, well-fed youth. The baker's son had grown up literally surrounded by food. He had probably never been hungry one moment in his life. Surrounded by not only abundant fresh bread, but also fine pastries, decadent cakes, even fresh meat, delivered straight to his door by people far more deserving than him. He didn't have any idea how good he had it, having everything handed to him his whole life.  _I'd like to see him deal with just one day not being surrounded by fresh food,_  Gale thought bitterly.

Oblivious to Gale's dark thoughts, the kid walked over to the door with a paper bag containing the fresh loaf of bread, and handed it over to Gale. "Here you go," he said with a smile on his face. Gale scowled at him and snatched the bag away. He thought he saw Peeta's smile falter a bit, but before he could be sure the boy was turned away, returning to his work in the kitchen.

Gale took a quick glance at the loaf in the bag before handing the squirrel over to the older man, and with a brief nod he turned to leave. After just a few steps, though, the baker's voice stopped him. "Good luck today."

Gale turned back to the old man. He said nothing in reply, giving only another nod before leaving once again.

As he made his way towards the woods to meet up with Katniss, he felt his momentary rage settle down into the general low-level anger he felt so often. He had to trade with merchants to sustain his family, but every time he got a glimpse into their well-fed lives, it only fed his anger. The unfairness and inequality ate at him. It hardened his resolve to leave. To just drop everything and run away into the woods. They could do it, him and Catnip together, they could live out in the woods and feed themselves and leave all this bullshit behind. Then they'd finally be free, free to be together and free to have a family.

And unless he didn't really know her at all, Catnip would be as excited about that as he was.

...

74.

The square was steadily emptying, everyone was heading home, but Peeta remained rooted in his spot. He couldn't bring himself to move. He felt like the whole world had tipped over on its side, and he didn't know how to operate in this new reality. He barely knew how to breathe, let alone how to move.

He knew his position wasn't unique. There was at least one other family going through the same thing right now, and countless others had done it before. How did they do it? How did they go on?

A particular bit of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. After thinking about it for a moment, he managed to turn his head, and found the familiar sight of Katniss Everdeen. She was headed home, of course, together with her sister, Prim.

Her sister. Going home. Going home with her sister.

Peeta had felt a lot of different things in relation to Katniss Everdeen over the years. But today, for the first time, he felt envy. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't deny it, and he couldn't bring himself to fight it. For the first time, he was jealous of Katniss. Because she was going home,  _with_  her sister.

As if she could feel him staring at her, Katniss looked up, and suddenly they were staring each other in the eye across the square. Normally this was when he would turn away and pretend like he hadn't been looking, but right now he couldn't manage it. He just stared back at her, for the first time since the day after he'd thrown her the bread. The look on her face was curious. It wasn't pity, like he'd seen from so many others. It wasn't the nervous look of someone who didn't know how to deal with him in this moment. It was a look of genuine concern, genuine compassion, genuine sympathy, genuine caring. And somehow, seeing it, getting that look from Katniss Everdeen, he felt like he could breathe for the first time since Effie Trinket had announced the name.

He started when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder. He looked up to see his brother Barlee. Barlee, who was too old for the reaping. Who was too old to volunteer. And suddenly Peeta felt jealous of him, too, because he wouldn't have to live with the guilt.

When he looked back across the square, Katniss was just barely within sight at the edge of the square, once again making her way home, her arm wrapped protectively around her precious sister.

"Come on, Peet," his brother said, squeezing his shoulder and pulling him towards the Justice Building. "Let's go say goodbye to Rye."


	2. 76

76.

Peeta looked up, and of course found Katniss looking at him.

She was standing with _him_ , of course. She and Gale had been inseparable for many years now, and still he couldn't contain the pang of jealousy that coursed through him at the sight of the two of them together. But he did his best to push it aside, because for only the second time since their weird new routine had been established, she was actually meeting his gaze.

After Rye was reaped two years ago, Peeta had found himself the focus of hundreds of unwelcome stares, and one welcome one. More than once he had looked up to catch a pair of silver eyes, dark with sorrow, quickly flit away from him. It seemed the tables had turned, after so many years. Now she was the one surreptitiously watching him.

He still couldn't manage the nerve to actually speak to her, of course. At first he had been too broken up over Rye's death in the Games to do anything. Once he had finally been able to grieve and try to live again, it felt like too much time had passed. They had already fallen into this new routine. They never spoke, they never even met each other's gaze, except once. At the next reaping, they had caught each other's eye while waiting in line to check in, and had not looked away. After a moment, they had exchanged small nods. Unspoken well wishes.

And now they were doing it again, as neither looked away from the other. Slowly, deliberately, Peeta nodded at Katniss. After a moment, she nodded back. A silent hope that they would both survive their final reaping.

After another moment, Gale stole her attention, wondering what she had been staring at. Peeta was sure to disappear into the crowd before Gale could follow her gaze.

…..

76.

_It's over._

Katniss rolled her eyes at the ridiculous thought. Of course it wasn't _over_. Prim had four more reapings to try to survive. Gale's brothers had more reapings to survive. Posy wouldn't even _begin_ the reaping for another six years.

But for Katniss, this small part of the struggle was over. She had survived her last reaping. Now she had to face the rest of her life.

As her final reaping had approached over the past few months, the prospect of planning for her life after had become more and more daunting. Currently all she had to do was attend school and hunt in every moment of her available time, but now that she was done with the reapings, that was all about to change. Soon school would be over, and she would be expected to have a trade or job of some sort. Most likely a job working in the coal mines along with nearly every other able-bodied adult from the Seam.

It's not like any of this came as a surprise. She had been mentally preparing herself to work in the mines for years now. But as her future in the mines had come closer and closer to reality, her mental state had deteriorated. She hadn't had a decent night's sleep in months, her dreams plagued not by horrible visions of the upcoming reaping, but of her life afterwards. Of mine explosions and tunnel collapses and elevator falls. Of pleading for her father to run before he was consumed by a disaster; of Prim pleading for her to do the same.

Eventually she'd had to admit to herself that she didn't think she could do it. Somehow Gale managed to consign himself to that black grave for twelve hours every day, but she didn't think she could do it without completely losing her mind. She wasn't strong enough. She hated to admit to any weakness, she hated feeling like she was no better than her mother, but her instinct for self-preservation was stronger than her pride. There was no way she could work at the mines.

Of course, she was the only one who was disappointed by this. Prim wanted her to train as a healer with their mother, or at least tell people she was while she continued to hunt. It would probably work, too; the Peacekeepers here in Twelve didn't care enough to call her bluff, not when they were some of her best customers. But Katniss was afraid that such an obvious lie would leave her too vulnerable to exposure. It would only take one grumpy Peacekeeper, or self-important busybody, to ruin everything.

Gale had his own solution. He wanted them to get married. It wasn't uncommon for only one member of a family to work in the mines while the other worked in the home; as Gale's wife she would be free to spend her days hunting without her lack of employment being conspicuous. Of course, while Gale presented this as purely a practical solution, she knew he wanted more. She knew he wanted a real marriage, with love, and sex, and children. Katniss wanted none of that. Not with Gale; not with anyone.

She looked across the square, and caught a particular set of blond heads heading back to town. This was Peeta Mellark's last reaping as well. Of course, he never had to even consider a job in the mines, or a marriage of convenience. Katniss wasn't normally one to join Gale in his anger at merchants for the crime of simply being merchants; and she knew that even among merchants, Peeta Mellark was one of the kindest people in Twelve. But in this moment she couldn't help but envy the boy with the bread. He would walk straight out of the reaping and into his job at the bakery. He would never fear for his life while at work. He was free to marry whichever town girl caught his fancy, and there were certainly more than a few who had their eye on the handsome baker's son.

For just a moment Katniss felt like she envied those girls, too. Living in a nice house in town. Training to work as a butcher or a tailor or a shoemaker, not a coal miner waiting for the roof to cave in, or a hunter waiting to be caught and flogged. Free to pursue relationships for want instead of for need. Free to pursue Peeta Mellark.

She quickly shook her head. What was she thinking? She had no interest in any of that. She didn't _want_ any relationship. And why had she thought of Peeta? It must have been just because he was already on her mind. Must have been. What a ridiculous idea, her and Peeta Mellark, in a relationship. As if either of them wanted _that_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 78th Games. And for people who have been waiting, the second half of Chapter 3 is the first new material that wasn't part of the original Prompts in Panem submission.


	3. 78

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who read the original TGiAG Prompts in Panem submission, about the middle of this chapter is the beginning of new material that wasn't part of that submission.

78.

Katniss ran.

She didn't know where she was, except she was obviously still in District Twelve. She didn't know how long she'd been running. She didn't know how far she'd gone. She must have been running in circles, at least to an extent, otherwise she would have come to the district fence by now. She would have headed straight for the fence and fled into the woods if that had been an option, but the fence was always on during the Games these days. So she had no destination. She followed wherever her feet carried her. It was pouring rain, and she was barefoot, and her lungs ached with the effort it took to keep breathing, but she didn't let any of that stop her. She knew Gale would be out looking for her by now, beside himself with worry, but she spared him no consideration. She just ran.

The past two weeks had been their own special kind of hell. The reaping had been a nightmare come true, and she had never woken up. And now she never would.

She had been deluding herself into thinking that it would all be okay. She recognized that now. Delusions can feel good in the moment, delusions can help a person function for a short time. But ultimately delusions can not insulate a person from reality. Katniss's delusion had been shattered when she watched the burly Career boy from District Four choke the life out of her precious Prim, while Claudius Templesmith cackled at Prim's feeble attempts to pry his hands from her throat.

In that moment, Katniss found she couldn't deal with the absurdity her life had turned into. Pretending to be a healer. Pretending to be with Gale. Pretending that anything she had done in the previous decade had been worth a damn, now that the only person she was sure she loved would be sent home from the Capitol in a wooden box.

So she ran.

Eventually, she was forced to succumb to fatigue. Her muscles burned with exhaustion, her movements becoming weaker and clumsier by the minute. She was soaked through to the bone. Her feet were covered in innumerable small cuts. Finally she collapsed, unable to continue. After several minutes of lying motionless, panting for breath, she was able to drag herself over to a small tree, and pull herself up into a sitting position. It was many minutes more before she had recovered enough to lift her head and assess her surroundings.

No. It couldn't be. How could she be _here_ , of all places? If she'd had the strength left to do so, she would have gotten up and left. Unfortunately she barely had the strength left to breathe. In the entirety of District Twelve, some unconscious instinct inside of her had directed her feet to this spot. To the same place she had been during another rainstorm eight years earlier, the last time she had felt as desperately lost as she did right now.

Katniss thought back to that girl, who had collapsed under this same tree, and she found that she actually envied her younger self. Yes she'd been starving and half dead, but she'd had a purpose. Her life made sense. What sense was there in her life now? She envied that young girl because she'd had Prim waiting for her at home. She wished Prim was home right now, even just so they could starve to death together. She envied her younger self even that, the opportunity to starve to death. It would be a welcome change from this world where she was alone.

As she thought of the girl who had nearly given up on life under this tree just over eight years ago, her thoughts turned to the boy who had saved her. The boy with the bread, who braved a beating from his witch of a mother to give her bread, and hope. What a waste. His efforts were a waste, the life he saved was a waste, because it had always been all about Prim. And Prim was gone.

She tried to contain the sobs that erupted from her soul, but she could not. She bit her fist and held her breath and told herself that it was just the rain that coursed in torrents down her face.

"Katniss?"

As if summoned by her thoughts, he appeared out of the storm.

The boy with the bread.

…..

78.

Peeta went through the motions of preparing loaves to rise overnight, but his mind wasn't on his task. He didn't notice the destruction surrounding him, even as he deftly stepped around battered steel and broken glass. As he mindlessly went about his tasks, his mind was distracted by the emptiness in his heart.

He had felt it like a kick in the gut when Prim Everdeen was reaped two weeks ago. Suddenly he was right where he had been four years earlier, watching them take Rye away.

The earth-shattering wail that had emanated from Katniss had broken his heart. For the first time in his life, he was actually thankful for Gale Hawthorne, who had practically tackled Katniss with a huge bear hug to prevent her from assaulting a Peacekeeper. Yet he still couldn't stop the bloom of envy he felt watching Katniss break down in another man's arms, beating her fists against him, begging Gale to release her, screaming her denials that this could really be happening into the stunned silence of the square.

His thoughts over the past two weeks had been a confusing jumble. Sorrow for what Katniss was going through, hope for Prim that maybe she had a chance to come home, the jealousy of Gale Hawthorne that never really went away, all interspersed with moments when he would get lost in his own memories of losing Rye to the Games.

Things had cleared up a bit earlier that afternoon, when Triton from District 4 had crushed Prim's windpipe. Seeing another child dead, seeing Prim Everdeen dead, it had sent him over the edge. His revulsion at having to witness such brutality. His mourning for an innocent girl who didn't deserve to die in terror. His sorrow for what Katniss was going through at that moment. His certainty that Gale Hawthorne's arms were there to comfort her, and also his lips.

What Peeta felt in that moment was powerless, completely and utterly powerless. He could spend years buying game and berries and cheese, trying his best to keep just one Seam family fed, but in the end he'd still had to watch mutely as Prim Everdeen's life was ended by some brute from the fishing district. He couldn't protect anyone, not with a handful of coins and a few loaves of bread. He couldn't even manage to exchange more than a look and a small nod with the girl he'd been in love with for fifteen years.

He had control of exactly one thing, the bakery, and when he lashed out he vented himself on the one thing he could control. Dishes were smashed, utensils went flying, glass was shattered, steel was dented. He threw an entire set of wooden cooking utensils into the fire of the ovens, pretty sure that he had been struck with each and every piece of the set at one time or another and sick of having to look at them every day. When he was done, he sat in the middle of the destruction for a long time, catching his breath and surveying the damage. It wasn't too bad, really. The steel mixing bowls and wooden implements didn't care how hard he threw them. Most of the breakable items were in the apartment upstairs, what his parents hadn't taken with them when they moved out last year. Peeta took several deep breaths, retrieved what he needed from the chaos he'd created, and set about preparing for the morning rush.

It was as he was waiting for the loaves to rise that he thought he heard a commotion from out back. At first he dismissed it, it wasn't uncommon for people to go digging through the bakery's trash bins, and he wasn't really in a mood to see anybody. But when the noise didn't go away, he decided to investigate.

As he peered out the back door, his vision obscured by the heavy rainfall, he couldn't help but cast his memory back to another night, another rainstorm, another commotion behind the bakery. The night he had completely humiliated himself, throwing two burnt loaves at Katniss like she was some kind of animal, not even daring to look at her for fear of the hurt he would see in her eyes at his insult.

He thought he heard someone cry out from over by the apple tree. The same apple tree. He didn't know if he was seeing memory or reality when he spied the woman collapsed at the tree's base. "Katniss?" he asked in disbelief.

Her clothes were soaked through, clinging to her and weighing her down. Absent was the leather jacket she was almost always wearing when he saw her in town. Her hair was in one braid instead of two. No, this was not the Katniss of his memory. When she looked up at him, when he saw the emptiness in her face that he remembered so well from the mirror four years earlier, he did the only thing he could do. He knew from experience that words were useless right now. He waited to see what Katniss would do, and when she did nothing but continue staring blankly, he walked over to the tree, and sat himself on the ground next to Katniss. He draped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace. Katniss surprised herself by welcoming the gesture; she turned her head into his shoulder and abandoned herself to her grief.

The twilight had tapered into evening by the time her sobs eased. Finally she lifted her head to look at the man she'd let herself break down with. Gale had tried holding her like this in the time since the reaping, but his arms had never felt as warm or as comforting as Peeta's did now. She didn't want to feel like this, she didn't want to depend on anyone for anything, but she found she didn't have the will to reject his comfort right now.

Peeta opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything the sound of the rain falling was interrupted by a voice in the distance, calling Katniss's name. They exchanged a look; they both knew who would be in town looking for Katniss.

Peeta steeled himself, disappointed that his brief moment with Katniss was ending so soon, but he was unprepared for the look of panic on her face. "Katniss…?"

"I can't-" she stammered, unable to finish a thought. "I'm not ready- I can't go home yet- I can't see him right now-"

Peeta brought his hand to her jaw to still her mouth. "Do you want to come inside and dry off some?" he asked softly. Despite her earlier protests, he was still surprised when she nodded her head.

Katniss was unsteady on her feet when she tried to stand. Peeta helped her up, then wrapped an arm around her waist in case she fell again. Katniss mutely accepted the gesture, holding onto his waist in return and leaning into him for support as he guided her into the bakery. She didn't react to the destruction evident in the bakery kitchen; in truth, it actually set her at ease a bit. The kitchen looked like she felt. Peeta didn't offer any explanation, merely assisted her up the stairs to his apartment. He brought her through the living room into the unused bedroom, and once there retrieved several towels from the dresser. "There are clothes in the closet," he explained. "They're not your usual style, but they're dry, and they'll fit you a lot better than any of my stuff. Feel free to use whatever you want."

"Won't your girlfriend be upset that I'm wearing her clothes?" Katniss asked.

Peeta huffed out a small laugh. "I don't have a girlfriend, these are clothes my mother left here when my parents moved across town. And yes, she would be very upset to see you wearing them." With that he left to dry off and change clothes himself.

When Katniss emerged from the bedroom, dry and changed and her hair freshly braided, she found Peeta in the kitchen serving out tea and bread rolls. She opened her mouth to protest, but Peeta cut her off. "No, don't even try it. If you're going to be in my house, you're going to eat something." Katniss silently accepted a roll and a mug of tea.

They didn't speak again for a long time. They silently consumed an entire basket of rolls, and a pot of tea, and a box of broken cookies. Staring at the iced designs on the cookies, Katniss was reminded of the beautiful cakes Prim liked to admire in the bakery window.

"How do you do it?" she asked. "How do you go on when they're gone?"

Peeta sighed, then gave a small shrug. "I don't know. You just do," he said. "The pain never really goes away, it just sort of becomes part of you, until one day it feels normal to hurt that much. So normal that it stops crippling you, even if it never really stops hurting." He paused for a minute, but Katniss said nothing. "You must have done the same thing, when your father died," he said.

"I didn't let myself feel anything when my father died," she said. "I couldn't break down like my mother did, I had to take care of Prim." She ordinarily didn't talk about that time of her life, but she found herself opening up to Peeta. He had already seen her at her worst, both eight years ago and an hour ago. And there was just something about him - the softness in his expression, the lack of pity in his blue eyes - she knew he wouldn't judge her. And she knew that Peeta Mellark was one of the very few people in Twelve who really understood what she was experiencing, and the only one she trusted.

They talked sporadically throughout the night, short bits of conversation separated by long silences. They began by talking about their shared trauma of losing a sibling in the Games. Eventually they moved on to other topics. Peeta explained how his remaining brother had distanced himself from the bakery after Rye's death, eventually apprenticing at another shop, and the circumstances that lead to his parents moving to a house across town and leaving Peeta alone with the bakery. Eventually, Katniss even explained how she had been posing as Gale's girlfriend so that her joblessness wouldn't stand out.

"But I don't think I can do it anymore," she confessed. "Now it just seems so… silly. Like I've turned myself into something I'm not. I want to live as myself."

"So why don't you?" Peeta asked.

"Because I didn't think I could handle working in the mines, and they're the only ones who would hire me," she explained.

They were quiet for another while as Katniss reconsidered nearly every decision she had made since her last reaping two years earlier. A person's last reaping was a life-changing event, the true beginning of adulthood, when a person's life began to take the shape it would hold from then on. School ended, and people moved on to the jobs they would hold for the rest of their lives. Many people married soon after their last reaping, and almost everyone did within a few years.

Katniss could see now that what she had done was to try to prevent all of those changes. Her life as it was left much to be desired, she risked beatings or execution every day by hunting illegally and despite her best efforts her family was still rarely more than a step away from starvation. But the only thing she cared about was that she was able to take care of Prim. She had done so for many years, and she was terrified that any major change in her life would mean changing that as well. She refused to endanger Prim's future by acknowledging her own adulthood. So she pretended. She pretended that her life wasn't changing. She pretended to get along with her mother to avoid upsetting her sister. She pretended to apprentice with her mother to avoid having to work in the mines. She pretended to be in a relationship with Gale when that excuse had worn thin. She pretended that she wasn't being cruel to her best friend by making him fake a relationship he wanted so badly to be real. She pretended her whole life away, until the only real thing left in it was Prim.

So what was she left with now? She shook her head in sad acknowledgement of reality. She was left with nothing. Nothing. Prim was dead. The foundation she had built her life of lies around was gone, and she was left with nothing. A mother she had never really forgiven for abandoning her, who was now all too likely to do so again. A friendship that had been strained to the breaking point by faking something more, something more that he desperately wanted and she desperately didn't. Nothing.

"I don't know where to go now," she blurted out loud. She flushed in embarrassment, she hadn't meant to say that out loud. But something in her was letting her words flow more freely tonight. Maybe she was so bereft that she simply didn't have it in her to maintain the emotional walls she normally lived behind. Maybe her beloved sister's death had driven her completely mad, and that's why she found herself speaking so freely. She had never shared her true self with anyone after her father died, not with her mother who she felt alienated from and not with her sister who she had to protect and not with her friend who she wouldn't let herself appear weak in front of. Maybe she was finally discovering what a comfort it could be to open up to someone. Someone who understood. Someone who had been through a similar experience. Someone who she somehow knew would never judge her, or embarrass her, or be disappointed in her.

Someone who might have already found a place inside those emotional defenses, longer ago than she was ready to admit.

Whatever the reason, however new and unfamiliar the experience, she found herself unburdening herself to Peeta Mellark. "I don't think I can face that house, not with Prim gone, and my mother… And Gale, I don't even know what to say to him now. How do I break off a relationship that was never real to begin with? How do I tell him that without breaking his heart?"

"You can stay here, if you want." Peeta faltered when Katniss whipped her head up to face him and he saw the shock on her face, but he pressed on. "I have the extra bedroom, you can stay in there as long as you like." Katniss said nothing in response, she just kept staring at him, as if she didn't quite believe she had heard him correctly. With nothing to lose, Peeta voiced his next thought without taking the time to think about it. "And if you're worried about finding a job, um, well, you could work here. It's just me running the place right now, I could use some help."

Katniss's mouth opened and closed several times before she gained her voice. "I can't bake."

"I can teach you," Peeta said. "Or you can work the front of the shop."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," she scoffed. "I'd drive away all your business."

"Katniss, this is the only bakery in Twelve. Where are they going to go?" he joked. "Even if all you do is clean up a little, it would still be a huge help."

Katniss shook her head, and asked the question that was really on her mind. "Peeta, why are you always helping me?"

Peeta stopped and thought for a moment. He raked a hand through his blond curls, and gave her a weak grin. "Do you want the safe answer?"

"I want the real answer," she said with conviction.

Peeta nodded. He let out a breath before he began speaking. "Well, the truth is that I had a huge crush on you when we were in school."

Katniss felt her jaw drop open. She didn't know how to respond to that. "Do you remember our first day?" Peeta asked.

Katniss was incredulous. "What, when we were _five?_ "

Peeta nodded in confirmation. "That day, you sang the valley song in front of the music assembly. You were fearless, walking right up to the front of the class. And your voice, I swear it's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I was a goner as soon as I heard you sing."

Katniss stopped to think for a moment, taking the time to reassure herself that she really did want the answer to her next question. "And when did your five-year-old crush go away?"

Peeta wouldn't look at her as he answered. "It didn't."

They were quiet as they each paused to let Peeta's confession sink in. This was a subject she had always sidestepped and shied away from whenever Gale brought it up, and her instinct was to do the same now. But taking that approach with Gale had lead her to where she was now, hiding from him with a man she had never spoken to before tonight. So she decided to go against her gut and confront the subject directly.

"I don't want to string you along too," she said bluntly. "I know I've hurt Gale, I don't want to do that to anyone else."

"That's not why I'm doing this," Peeta said. "I'm not asking you for anything like that. I don't want… I'm not trying to coerce you into anything. I just want to help. If that's what you need, a job and someplace to stay for a while, I can offer that much. Please, let me help."

Katniss considered his offer for just a moment. She never accepted help from people, never accepted anything that she didn't know for sure she could pay back. It took her years of working together before she stopped haggling every trade with Gale.

But that wasn't really an option when it came to Peeta. She already owed him her life, a debt she would certainly never have the opportunity to repay. She used to harbor fantasies that Peeta would contract an illness that could only be cured with herbs from the woods, and she could finally relieve the burden of her debt, but realistically there was never going to be a time when Peeta's survival depended on her.

If she was honest with herself, that was the real reason she never thanked Peeta for that bread; she couldn't face him because of the burden of the debt she didn't know how to pay off. But now, somehow that debt didn't feel as important. In the face of what they had both lost, of what importance was one debt? Given how fragile life was in District 12, should she really deprive herself of Peeta's friendship just because she would always owe him? And what of his new offer, the offer of escape. Not escape from the district like Gale would sometimes delude himself into considering. But escape from a house without Prim. Escape from the tortured, ruined thing her friendship with Gale had become. Escape from what her life had degenerated into. What if she did accept his offer? What was one more debt when she already owed him more than she could ever hope to repay?

"Okay," she told him. "I'll allow it." Peeta allowed himself a small smile at her acquiescence, and Katniss found herself returning it. For the first time since she saw Prim die, she got the feeling that maybe she could face her future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 80th Games.


	4. 80

80.

Gale ran towards the town. The town was an inferno, the flames seeming to grow by the second, but that only made him run harder. He could practically feel time running out.

He had known the moment the television screen went dark that something bad was about to happen. Somehow he just knew. There had always been rumblings of rebellion in the mines, but it was limited to talk. Nobody in Twelve was willing to risk their precarious existence on open revolt. But someone, somewhere, obviously was. Gale was sure of it the moment the power died. The idea elated him, but he also knew it wasn't safe in District 12 anymore. He and his family were already leaving when fire began raining from the sky. He left Rory with the job of retrieving Mrs. Everdeen and taking everyone out of the district, and took off running for the town, his only thought that he had to get to Katniss before it was too late. Once again, her insistence on staying in town with that damned baker was ruining everything.

That last thought was motivated entirely by practical concerns and not at all by jealousy, he struggled to reassure himself.

Everything was happening too fast. The fire was spreading too fast, the flames were growing too fast. Everything was going up like a tinderbox, fueled by decades of coal dust ground into every surface. He had to change his route several times, as the usual paths were cut off by huge craters left behind by bomb detonations, or by walls of flame. He was beginning to despair of ever finding a clear path to the bakery, when he thought he heard her voice. He looked around, seeing nothing, when suddenly just a hundred feet in front of him he saw a large body burst through the flames and collapse to the ground. A moment later a much smaller body came through as well, a body whose movements and posture were nearly as familiar to him as his own.

"Catnip!" he called out, but she didn't hear him. He ran over as Katniss struggled to drag Peeta away from the flames. As he approached, he could see that they were both in pretty bad shape. Katniss had a nasty burn on the outside of her thigh that was red and oozing, and welts on the palms of both hands that she paid no mind to as she knelt by Peeta's supine form and patted out flames that had caught on his clothing. Peeta made no move to get up; his lower leg had been mangled somehow, and as Gale got closer he could see that Katniss had used a torn shirt twisted around a rolling pin to cut off blood flow to the wound, an emergency medical dressing he himself had learned about when he started working in the mines. The miners taught it to each other in case of an accident; it had saved the life of a woman named Ripper many years ago, though it cost her her arm.

Gale knelt opposite Katniss on Peeta's other side and finally got her attention. When she looked up at him, her eyes held a crazed, feral look he hadn't seen since Prim was reaped. "Help me," she pleaded. "I can't carry him, he's too heavy."

For just a moment, the familiar jealousy that always accompanied any thoughts of Katniss and the baker consumed him. He knew they had only a friendly relationship, but he lived in constant worry that it would grow into more over time. At first he had hoped Peeta would try something and scare Katniss away. As the years had passed, he grew to fear the idea of Peeta trying something, afraid that Katniss would be receptive.

But he knew there was no time for his jealousy right now, not when all their lives were at stake. He hauled Peeta up onto his good leg and threw one of the injured man's arms over his shoulders. Katniss moved to Peeta's other side to offer what support she could, but it was slow going. Two people of such different heights were ill equipped to help a man along, and the herky-jerky motion was causing Peeta intense pain in his injured leg. The second time they dropped him, Peeta decided it was enough.

"We'll never make it at this rate," he told the others.

Gale had come to the same conclusion, but had been reluctant to voice it, and he was glad of his restraint when he saw the angry look on Katniss's face. "Shut up, Peeta. We're trying to save you, dammit!"

"Katniss, you have to leave me behind," he said far too calmly for an injured man asking to die. "It's the only way you or Gale can survive."

Katniss shook her head in denial. "No…"

"Katniss, please," Peeta begged. "Don't die for me. You won't be doing me any favors."

"I won't just leave you behind!" she said.

"Your family needs you, Katniss," Peeta said. "Your mother needs you. Gale needs you. No one really needs me."

For just a moment, Gale felt his heart soar at the fact that Peeta has casually included him as part of Katniss's family. But as much as Peeta had just renewed his hope of rebuilding his relationship with Katniss, a moment later Katniss shattered it.

"I do," she said emphatically. "I need you." Peeta shook his head, and opened his mouth to say something, but Katniss stopped his lips with her fingertips. "They've taken so much from us already," she said. She moved her hand from his mouth to take his hands in hers. "Don't let them take you from me."

Peeta shook his head again. "No, I don't want to…"

"Stay with me," Katniss cut him off.

Peeta seemed to be wavering, warring with himself over his response, when a loud crash from nearby spurred Gale to action. "We're wasting time," he said, ignoring his broken heart. No matter what he was feeling, he had a very great desire to live long enough to feel it. He took Peeta's hands from Katniss and used them to pull Peeta up into a sitting position, then back up onto his good leg. "Sorry about this, baker boy, it won't be very pleasant for you." He grabbed Peeta around the waist and hauled him up and over his shoulder like he was a large pack of tools.

"Can you carry him very far?" Katniss asked timidly as she stood.

"Far enough," Gale grunted. "Let's go."

…..

80.

It was strange watching her mother work. It always had been. Even in the good years before her father died, her mother became a different person when she was working on patients. Stronger. More focused. More efficient. And even as she changed through the years, even after she lost first a husband and later a daughter, this person she became in the presence of illness or injury had never really changed.

These thoughts occupied Katniss as she watched her mother treat the refugees from what used to be District 12. Broken bones were set, cuts were stitched, and of course burns were bandaged. Katniss herself had a large bandage wrapped around her thigh. Thankfully most injuries were rather minor; it seemed that anyone with more serious injuries never made it out of the district.

Except for one, of course.

They had made camp at her father's lake; part of Katniss resented having all these people at what she had long thought of as a private place, but when they fled into the woods she hadn't been able to think of any better destination. The lake offered clean water, good food sources, and it was far enough from the district to be safe without being too far of a hike. At first Katniss tried to assist her mother with treating people, but found that regardless of being only other person there with any medical knowledge, she was singularly unsuited for the task as she always had been. Soon she was replaced by Delly Cartwright, a friend of Peeta's who was one of the few survivors form town. She shared Peeta's empathy and compassion and was instantly more of a help than Katniss could be even after a lifetime of watching her mother and sister at work. Katniss's role was reduced to retrieving requested plants and herbs from the woods around them.

They had left their most difficult patient for last. It was almost midday when they all finally gathered by Peeta's side. He lay stretched across the hearth in the little concrete house by the lake's edge, oblivious to the world around him after being dosed with almost half their remaining supply of sleep syrup. Filling the small structure were not only Katniss, her mother, and Delly, but also Gale and his mining crewmate Thom, who seemed to have some sort of prior relationship with Delly that Katniss didn't feel like taking the time to unravel just then.

Mrs. Everdeen gave Peeta's mangled leg one last look, and sadly shook her head as she stood. "It's no use, there's nothing we can do."

A part of Katniss knew her mother's diagnosis had been inevitable, but still she rebelled against it. "There has to be something. The fires have died down, maybe we can get something from the district-"

"That won't do any good, Katniss," her mother said. "If we had a hospital, a real hospital like they have in the Capitol, and we had gotten him there last night, then maybe they could have done something. But now it's too late for even that." She gestured to the injured limb. "Peeta's leg is  _rotting_ , Katniss, you know that as well as I do. The only thing protecting him from blood poisoning is that tourniquet. We have no choice but to amputate."

"What do you mean we have no choice!" Katniss screamed. "Of course we do! We can't just chop off his leg! He isn't even awake! Who are you, anyway, to decide this for him!"

Peeta began stirring in his drug-induced sleep. He tried to move his leg, as Mrs. Everdeen and Delly moved to hold him in place. "Take her out," Mrs. Everdeen ordered. Gale and Thom had to literally carry Katniss out the door while she shouted obscenities at her mother. At Gale's direction, they brought her down to the lakeshore a bit away from the house, and held her there until her fight gave out and dissolved into sobs.

When Katniss eventually calmed herself, Thom had left, and she was alone with Gale. He gave her some food he had gathered, some nuts and berries and katniss tubers roasted over a fire. They ate in silence until Katniss spoke up. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Gale said. "After last night I think we all need a breakdown."

"No, Gale-" she paused, unsure how to explain herself, but she felt like she had to say this now. "I'm sorry I hurt you."

Gale stared at her intently for half a minute, then shifted his gaze to look out over the water. "I never stood a chance, did I?"

Katniss didn't answer directly. "I never wanted the same things you did." They had discussed it since they were kids, really. His desire to marry and have children. "I tried to. I wanted to. It would have been so much easier if I did. But I just couldn't."

"And now?" Gale asked. "With him?"

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I know what everyone thinks, but it's never been like that between us. We've never even discussed it, really." She left out the one time they had discussed it, the night Prim died when Peeta had confessed to having feelings for her. Gale didn't need to know about that, and besides Peeta himself hadn't mentioned it again in the years since. "It's just, last night… If he died, I don't know what I'd do." She shook her head in disbelief, shocked at her words even as she was saying them. "I can't lose him."

They didn't speak again until Delly came to them. "We're done," she said simply. "You can go see him if you want."

Katniss looked quickly to Gale. "Go on," he said. "You should be there when he wakes up."

Katniss flashed him a quick smile, and moved quickly to return to the house. Inside, Peeta hadn't moved. His leg ended with a large bandage just above where his knee used to be. Katniss looked away from that quickly. She sat on the floor by the hearth, facing Peeta's head, with his leg hidden behind her. Alone with Peeta for the first time since Gale had found them the night before, she took his hand and held it tightly in both of hers, pretending not to let her fingertips wander to check his pulse every so often.

He looked younger with his features relaxed in sleep; in the dim light from the windows it was easy to see the boy he used to be. The boy with the bread, who had braved his mother's cruel punishment to throw her that crucial sustenance. She let her fingers wander to his face, tracing the outline of the swollen bruise that had been on his cheek the next day at school. The eye that had been blackened. She brushed some of his unruly blond hair out of his face. She gently ran the pads of her fingers across his forehead. Down the side of his face. Along the stubble covering his jaw.

Would things have been different if she had talked to him that day? What could they have been, a starving Seam girl whose father was dead and a popular town boy whose mother beat him? Would they have been friends? Could they have been more? Would she have wanted different things from life if she had had someone she wanted them with?

For just a moment, she pictured this alternate Katniss and Peeta. Friends as kids, growing into teenagers together. Supporting each other through the reapings. Helping ease the pain of an abusive mother, or one who was mentally absent. She would have met Rye in person, and been there for Peeta when he was reaped. Peeta and Prim would get along better than any two people she could imagine, she was sure of it, and he would have been as devastated by her death as Katniss was herself.

She couldn't help but envy this alternate Katniss, who grew from a child to an adult with Peeta as a constant presence in her life. She had no doubt that the alternate Katniss was a better person than the real one had turned out to be.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. She lifted Peeta's hand from her lap and pressed it to her lips. "I wasted so much time. It was almost too much time." She felt tears escaping her eyes, and furiously brushed them away with her free hand. "I won't waste any more," she promised, as much to herself as to Peeta.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but she woke with a start when someone jostled her shoulder. She realized she was leaned awkwardly over Peeta's sleeping form, and groaned at the stiffness in her back as she sat up.

She looked up to find her mother examining Peeta's leg. "I just need to check the wound and put on a fresh bandage," the older woman explained. Katniss just nodded in reply.

Katniss took a moment to admire the way her mother went about her job. The skin around Peeta's new stump didn't even look irritated. And where had she managed to find a needle to stitch the wound closed? Or a saw to cut the bone, for that matter? Operating in conditions like this made her usual scrounging for instruments in the Seam look easy, but somehow she had managed, just like always. Peeta was lucky she was here among their little group of survivors. They all were. Katniss knew there were more people than just Peeta who wouldn't even be amongst the survivors if nor for her mother's efforts overnight.

"I'm sorry," Katniss said. "About screaming at you before."

Mrs. Everdeen waved off her apology. "I've heard worse," she said. "You've seen how people are, when someone they love is in pain."

Someone they love. The words crashed against Katniss's psyche. That's what she had been thinking about earlier, wasn't it? She had never thought to put the name to it, but there was no other word that fit. Wanting a life with Peeta. Wanting the kind of life with him that Gale had always wanted with her. Feeling bereft at the idea of losing him. That was the feeling that she hadn't realized she'd been refusing to name. That was love.

"Yeah," was all she said out loud. Soon enough her mother finished her work and she was once again left alone with Peeta. And her thoughts.

It was growing dark again when she felt Peeta's hand twitch in hers. She looked up to see his eyes flutter open, just slightly. "Hey," he grunted.

"Hey," she replied around the lump in her throat.

"You stayed," he said.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "And that means you can't either."

"Never crossed my mind," he got out before drifting off again.

Later on, he would think that he'd dreamed the smile on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the huge cliffhanger for the next chapter: How will I count the years now that the rebellion is beginning and there presumably won't be any more Games?


	5. 80 plus 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, old friends. It's been a while.

80 plus 2.

Peeta took a tray out of the oven, and smiled at the familiar sight of steam rising from the tops of the buns.

Things had certainly changed in Thirteen since Peeta and the other refugees from Twelve had arrived two years earlier. After the Victor's Coup that had deposed President Coin and set up a Rebellion Council led by a former rebel commander named Paylor, the oppressive austerity of the underground district had begun steadily easing. The kind of resource hoarding Coin had enforced may have been necessary during the years when the district was on its own, but now they routinely exchanged goods with other districts that had broken free of the Capitol. Among other things, that meant more freedom for the kitchen workers to make food that actually tasted good, not just food that delivered nutrients efficiently.

It was still a fight, sometimes. The supervisors left over from the Coin regime, people who had lived their whole lives without ever leaving the underground bunker of Thirteen, often did not understand what Peeta, Sae, and other refugee workers were trying to do. This tray of rolls, in particular, had taken three weeks to get approved once Peeta found out that District 10 would be sending them a regular supply of cow's-milk cheese.

Peeta finished emptying the oven, and put the next set of trays in to bake. Working to feed the combined population of natives and refugees that now made up District 13 was quite a step up from working in the small bakery back in Twelve. Thirteen wasn't as large as Twelve used to be, but back home most people couldn't afford to buy bakery bread. Peeta liked this change, even if he'd had to re-work all of his family's recipes to serve many times the number of people.

Peeta glanced out into the dining hall, and just caught the arrival of the squad he'd been waiting for all day. All month, if he was being honest, even before the announcement was made last week that the Nut had finally fallen and troops would soon be rotated home. He'd only gotten word late last night that they were expected back today. There was the victor Johanna Mason, whose abrasive personality he'd heard far too much about. There was Dalton, the man from Ten who knew everything there was to know about breeding cows but nothing at all about cooking them, which was why he was in a military squad rather than in the kitchen with Peeta. And there was Gale Hawthorne. Tall and strong, with an easy smile, no doubt pleased with another job well done. He cut an imposing figure in his military uniform, even if it was the same drab gray everyone in Thirteen wore.

Distracted by his thoughts, Peeta didn't realize where he was until he bumped into the work table in the middle of the room. A loud _clang_ echoed through the room as his prosthetic leg crashed into the steel leg of the table. He cursed himself for his clumsiness, and waived off the concerned looks of his nearby coworkers. After two years with the contraption he could walk and move around without giving his prosthetic a second thought, but that didn't mean he wanted to call attention to it. Peeta collected himself for a moment, and began working out his annoyance on the batch of dough waiting for him on the table.

Peeta was left alone with his thoughts as he worked the dough. He chastised himself for the familiar bloom of envy he felt whenever he thought about Gale Hawthorne for too long. Even the passage of years and their drastic change of circumstances hadn't changed his jealousy of the Seam man, only the reasons behind it. Gale, the ideal model of a Thirteen soldier. Gale, with his two healthy legs, was free to go on military missions and help protect his fellow soldiers. Unlike Peeta, who could only stay behind and worry.

A part of Peeta knew how childish and petty he was being. In his more clear-thinking moments he was glad he'd lost only his leg, and not his life, when the Capitol bombed District 12. And he knew he had Gale, among others, to thank for that. But at times like this, when he had spent six weeks of sleepless nights cursing his own uselessness, it was all too easy to let his worst instincts run away from him.

Another larger part of Peeta knew that he was only wallowing in this jealousy as a way to distract himself. Because there was still one soldier missing from the homecoming he had witnessed in the dining hall earlier.

There was a timer above the oven, but Peeta never used it. He knew how long these took to bake. He took out the new batch of fresh buns and loaded the oven with the next set of trays. As he waited for the rolls to cool enough to be sent out for serving, he chanced another glance out to the dining hall. Gale was seated with his family now. Posy was hugging her oldest brother as they ate, while Vick seemed to be peppering Gale with questions about his latest mission. Vick was still about a month short of his eighteenth birthday, enrolled in training as all teens in Thirteen were but not yet part of a combat squad like Gale and Rory were, and the youngest Hawthorne brother was eager for the chance to emulate his siblings. Peeta knew the feeling, from back when he'd had older brothers.

It occurred to Peeta that Posy had had a birthday while Gale was away. The girl was twelve years old now. If not for Thirteen and the rebellion, her name would be going into a reaping ball this summer. It was important to remember the good that had come from this war; that countless soldiers and ninety percent of District 12 and almost all of District 8 and everyone else who had been sacrificed to the fight against the Capitol hadn't died in vain.

Distracted by these thoughts, he didn't notice the kitchen door opening. And as usual, her footsteps were silent. So her musical voice took him by surprise when she spoke.

"Are those cheesebuns?"

Peeta spun around and was greeted by the most beautiful sight he could imagine: Katniss Everdeen, whole and unharmed, and safely returned home. Peeta sprang forward and threw his arms around her, lifting her clear off the ground in a tight embrace. They got several amused and indulgent looks from the other kitchen workers, but neither of them noticed.

"Peeta!" Katniss said through her own laughs. "Put me down!"

"No," he said, looking up into her silver eyes. "I never want to let go of you again."

Katniss's whole face softened. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and laid her head on his shoulder. "Okay. I'll allow it," she said quietly.

…..

Peeta didn't remember much from the days following the bombing of Twelve. He had been dosed with as much sleep syrup as they'd been able to escape with, because they didn't have any other painkillers for him to take after his amputation. He had nothing but a handful of fuzzy, disjointed images left from those days. The only constant in his fragmented memories was Katniss, always by his side, always holding his hand.

When he finally woke, it was to a whole new world. His leg was gone. His district was gone. His family was gone. He was in a hospital, a real hospital, surrounded by doctors and therapists who all rolled their eyes at his panicked insistence that he wanted to be treated by Mrs. Everdeen. He was in some kind of underground bunker, in a district he'd believed his whole life had been wiped off the map 80 years earlier.

And he suddenly had a girlfriend. If that was even the name for it. Katniss never said anything about the change in their friendship, talking wasn't exactly her style, but she never left his side. And when he was released from the hospital, he found that they shared a residential compartment. At one point, when they were alone in what he was just realizing was their compartment, Peeta hesitated. Katniss seemed to recognize his thought process, and she gave him a hard stare, almost daring him to open his mouth and question their new circumstances. After a moment, Peeta closed his mouth mutely accepted the situation.

And that was that.

…..

Peeta allowed himself until the next batch of cheesebuns had to come of the oven to luxuriate in the feeling of having Katniss in his arms once again, but finally he reluctantly set her down and began retrieving hot trays from the oven. Once the next batch was cooking, he placed two of the fresh buns on a plate and presented them to Katniss.

"Are you sure this is okay?" she asked, even as she reached out and took the plate.

"It's fine, it's not like they send people to Level 39 anymore," Peeta said. "Who do you think I made them for, anyway?"

Katniss ducked her head to hide her blush as she greedily ate the cheesey, pillowy rolls. She had a weakness for cheese buns even at the best of times, but it had been two years since she'd had one. She ate the second one more slowly, however. Even with the recent loosening of the rationing rules, they both knew sneaking her two buns was about the limit of what would be tolerated, so she took her time savoring the second.

They talked as Peeta continued his work and Katniss ate. Peeta tried asking her about how the mission had gone, as he always did, and Katniss deflected all but the most superficial of questions, as she always did. She didn't want to think about her time in combat when she was back in Thirteen, or when she was with Peeta. It was like there were two distinct parts of her life, one part filled with war and battle, and another filled with Peeta, and she didn't like it when the two became intermingled.

Instead she told him about the meeting she had been called into that afternoon as soon as the squad had returned to Thirteen. "They're moving me into a new squad," she said.

"Oh?"

"Some kind of special-weapons sharpshooter squad, they said. I may get to use a bow again."

It made sense. With the Nut now in rebel hands, District 2 would be captured in fairly short order. After that, only the Capitol was left. Thirteen was preparing for the final phase of the war. But in his head, Peeta was worriedly trying to suss out what kind of missions they'd need special-weapons sharpshooters for. "Gale too?" he asked.

"Yeah," Katniss said. "Me, Gale, a handful of Thirteen natives I've never met before…" she trailed off for a moment before finishing her thought. "And Finnick Odair."

Peeta looked up from his work, shocked and a bit worried. "Really?"

Katniss nodded. "Really."

"They thought that was a good idea?" Peeta asked. "I thought the victors were basically in charge now. You'd think they would know to keep the two of you separated."

Very early in their stay in District 13, about a month after the bombing of Twelve, there had been a large assembly in the Collective, a huge room that easily held the thousands who showed up. Not all of the victors had escaped to Thirteen when the rebels crashed the Games, some had been captured by the Capitol. There was to be a Capitol broadcast that night with some of the captured victors, and all of Thirteen had been gathered to watch. Peeta was still learning to use his prosthetic and couldn't walk on it for more than a few minutes, but attendance for the broadcast was mandatory, so Katniss had pushed him to the meeting in a wheelchair.

As it turned out, there was only one victor shown that night: Triton, from District 4, victor of the 78th Hunger Games. The bruised and battered face of the nineteen-year-old victor was shown in a close-up as a narrator read a long list of charges against him: Treason; sedition; murder, which was kind of a funny thing to charge a victor with, Peeta thought. After the charges were read, the camera pulled back to show Triton being lead up onto the gallows by a group of Peacekeepers. They slipped a noose over his head, as the narrator gravely intoned that this should be taken as an example to all of Panem of the fate awaiting anyone who was so foolish as to dare betray the Capitol. Then, without further ceremony, the floor fell away and the rope snapped taut and Triton of District 4 was dead.

For several moments after the screen clicked off, only shocked murmurs could be heard in the Collective. Then one voice pierced the quiet, the voice of a woman with tears running down her face, who had been crushing Peeta's hand from the moment Triton from District 4 had appeared on screen. Into the stunned quiet of the Collective, her voice was clear and distinct. "That was better than he deserved. Rotten bastard."

That was when all hell had broken loose.

The Thirteen natives were mostly just baffled by Katniss's outburst. But the Twelve survivors, almost all of whom were from the Seam, they remembered the murderer of Primrose Everdeen. And while most would have said that the Four man wasn't really at fault, that the Games were the Capitol's fault and even Career tributes shouldn't be blamed too harshly for doing what they needed to do to survive, every single one of them sided with their own when a district of outsiders tried to reproach Katniss for not showing proper sympathy for a murdered rebel.

But by pure happenstance, standing only a dozen feet away from Katniss and Peeta had been a group of victors, including the famous Finnick Odair. Finnick had mentored Triton, had been the one to try to put the boy back together after he became a victor, had coached him through degradations that not even all of the victors knew about, and had been the one to bring him into the rebellion in the first place. In the blink of an eye, Finnick's guilt and grief turned to rage. He pushed his way through the crowd towards Katniss and would have attacked her if others hadn't gotten in his way. Finnick and Katniss screamed curses and invective at each other, blame and recrimination and the kinds of insults that could never be taken back, and nearly sparked a riot when other victors came to Triton's defense and all that was left of Twelve came to Katniss's.

Ever since then, whenever Finnick and Katniss found themselves in the same room, everyone tensed for a fight, even on such innocuous occasions as when they both ate dinner on the same shift. Putting the two of them in the same combat squad, with weapons easily available, seemed to Peeta to be a spectacularly bad idea. "Have you met with him yet?" he asked.

Katniss nodded her head. "Gale made sure to stand between us the whole time."

Well, that was something, Peeta supposed. Even here in supposedly safe Thirteen, Gale was around to protect her when he couldn't. He was at once thankful and jealous of the man, a mix of emotion he was far too familiar with.

As he worked the dough for tomorrow's morning loaves more roughly than he really should have been, he felt Katniss's slim arms wrap around him from behind. He started to back away from the work table, but she stopped him. "Don't bother, it's not worth taking the time to clean your hands off." Peeta disagreed, but he acquiesced to her wishes. It was still hard for her to show affection sometimes, and if it was easier for her when they weren't facing each other then he would accommodate her. She surprised him, though, when she placed two small kisses between his shoulder blades. "I'm going to go try to wash District 2 off of me. Will you be here long?"

"I should be back sometime before Bathing," he said.

"Okay," she said, and kissed his back again before pulling away. "I, um, I'll see you later," she stammered out, suddenly awkward.

Peeta couldn't help but smile. As much as her inability to express her feelings bothered her, Peeta was thrilled every time she tried. Even the attempt was a sign of how much she cared. "I love you, too," he said.

He heard her frustrated huff before she left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my plan to publish this story on a regular schedule for seven straight weeks hit a bit of a snag. When I started publishing this story with the whole thing planned in detail but without the last few chapters written, I wasn't anticipating losing all motivation to write for 14 months. Oops. For anyone still reading, the story is complete now, so you can safely expect Chapter 6 next week and Chapter 7 two weeks from now.
> 
> Back when I was publishing this story in 2013, I got a few messages from readers about how this story was constructed. Some people wanted a more complete story than just a scene or two every few years. Others mentioned scenes they were looking forward to seeing in future chapters, that I knew would not be part of the finished story.
> 
> To address the first issue: The idea for this story originally germinated as a response to a Prompts in Panem prompt for a story about the sin of Envy. That's where this storytelling style comes from: This isn't a complete narrative, it's a series of look-ins to moments when the characters felt envy for one another" Gale envies merchants for their comparatively easy lives, Peeta envies Gale for his relationship with Katniss, Katniss envies Peeta for having choices when she feels like she has none, etc. And even though I could conceivably scrap all of this and retell the story in a more traditional way now, I'm going to stick with my original idea, and publish the seven chapters I originally envisioned when I first planned out this story.
> 
> I did have another idea, though. Once I finish the seven chapters I have planned, I could go back and do some outtakes. Fill in the gaps, so to speak, with scenes and moments that weren't part of my original plan. I wanted to throw that idea out there to gauge interest. Would anyone be interested in something like that? And if so, what scenes would you want me to cover? Leave a comment or review, or hit up my ask box on Tumblr, and tell me what you'd like to see, and I'll write as many as I can after the last chapter of the main story goes up. And thanks so much for reading this story.


	6. 80 plus 3

80 plus 3

It was late when the knock sounded on the door to their compartment, at least two hours after lights out. Not that Peeta was asleep, he was far too wound up for that. He carefully extracted himself from bed - Katniss needed all the sleep she could get, especially tonight - and went to answer the door.

He had no idea who would risk coming over after lights out, but when he opened the door he wasn't at all surprised by who was on the other side. "Gale. Um, is it important? Katniss is asleep."

"I actually came to talk to you," Gale said.

That did surprise Peeta. "Okay. Well, come on in, then."

They sat in silence for a long moment. Things had always been awkward between them, ever since Gale had found out Katniss was at the bakery and she had refused to go home with him. Gale had done his best to be accepting of the choice Katniss had made in the aftermath of the bombing, and Peeta always tried to be accommodating of Katniss's oldest friend. But the only thing the two men truly had in common was their love for the same woman, and that was hardly the best foundation on which to build a friendship.

Gale cleared his throat. "I'm not sure if Katniss said anything, but we're shipping out tomorrow afternoon."

Peeta nodded. "Yeah, I know. The final assault on the Capitol. Clearing pods. Hell of a mission for a sharpshooter squad."

"You're not supposed to know our mission," Gale said.

Peeta shrugged. "We've lost too much already to keep each other in the dark about stuff like that. Plus it doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out what the next objective is. You came out after lights out to tell me the same thing anyway."

Gale shook his head. "I was just going to let you know we were shipping out, not where we were going. I just wanted to make sure she got the chance to say goodbye."

"And you didn't think she would have even told me she was leaving?" Peeta asked.

"Katniss tends to keep things to herself. Plus I overheard Odair saying that he wasn't going to tell his wife anything at all."

"How is that, the two of them in the same squad?" Peeta asked.

"It's weird," Gale said. "The first few weeks I was worried one of them would try to shoot the other, but now they almost get along. It's kind of creepy."

"I guess a common enemy works wonders," Peeta said.

"She really softened towards him when he did that propo last year," Gale said.

It had been a shock for everyone, when Finnick Odair had revealed just how victors were used by President Snow and the Capitol. His story had hit close to home for Peeta and Katniss, who suddenly had to confront the idea of what might have happened to their own siblings if they had managed to survive the Games. It was especially hard for Katniss, who had once considered prostitution as a way to feed her family and had only refrained because she was too young for even Cray.

"She'll never forgive Triton," Peeta said.

"Oh, no," Gale said. "Katniss and Odair will never be friends. But I guess you could call them allies, for the moment. After the war ends they won't have to see each other anymore."

They lapsed into silence once more, each lost in their own thoughts about the possibility of the war soon being over, at last. And of the dangers that still stood between them and that happy day.

At length, the silence was broken when both men uttered the same sentence.

"I really envy you."

Gale jerked his head back in surprise, while Peeta's eyebrows shot up. "Why?" Gale asked first.

Peeta shrugged, as if in resignation. "Tomorrow, you get to leave with her. You get to stay with her, watch out for her, try to protect her. All I can do is sit here and hope she comes home." He paused for a moment as Gale absorbed his words. "What about you?"

Gale spoke without hesitation. "You're the one she wants to come home to."

Peeta felt guilty for the rush of elation that he felt at Gale's words. "I don't care who she comes home to, as long as she comes home."

"I know," Gale said. "That's what makes you so hard to hate." The two men exchanged half-hearted smiles at Gale's not-really-a-joke. "The thing about Katniss is, she never really gives herself enough consideration. She always puts the people she loves ahead of herself. First Prim, and now you. If your leg didn't keep you out of combat squads, she'd probably still find some other way to keep you here. Safe."

"I'd rather be out there with her," Peeta said. "I'd be out there, even with the leg, if they let me."

"I know," Gale said. "I'm almost glad, though. The two of you in a squad together could go bad. The both of you would undervalue your own safety and overvalue each other's."

Peeta could only nod. Gale was undoubtedly right. Peeta knew that he would never follow an order he thought would put Katniss in danger. "But you watch out for her, right? As much as you can, I mean?"

Gale understood what he was asking. "Yeah. As much as I can," he reassured the younger man.

The two men had run out of things to say. Peeta walked Gale to the door, and offered him his hand. "Take care of her out there."

Gale took his hand and shook. "Take care of her when she comes home."

"Always," Peeta promised. Gale nodded at him again and left for his own compartment.

As Peeta slid back into bed behind Katniss, he wasn't surprised to find her awake. "Are you two done talking about me?" she said without turning to look at him. "You know I don't need either of you. I can take care of myself just fine."

"I know," he said, dropping a quick kiss to her shoulder and pulling her tightly against his chest. He closed his eyes and sighed contentedly at the feeling of her body against his. "But if I had my way the whole rebel army would look out for you."

"We'd lose the war that way," she said.

"Probably why they haven't put me in charge."

"Oh, yeah. That's why."

They were quiet for a time, but neither drifted toward sleep.

Eventually, Katniss spoke. "Tomorrow isn't the end. You know that, right? I'll be back after the Capitol falls."

"You've always come back before," Peeta said, repeating the mantra he'd been trying to convince himself of ever since Katniss first told him when she was leaving.

"That's right," she said. Peeta could hear the nerves in her voice, and he knew she was trying to convince herself as much as him. "I'll see you after the battle. The war will be over. And we'll go back to District 12 together."

"I want nothing more," he huffed into her shoulder. That was the plan they'd discussed throughout their years in Thirteen. After the war, they would escape the underground bunker, even if they had to live in an old army tent and chop down their own trees to build a house with. They'd go back home, and have a toasting, and live out their lives in District 12. It was the dream that kept them going through the darkest periods of the war.

"And _I'll_ take care of _you_ ," Katniss added.

"We'll take care of each other," Peeta said.

Katniss allowed it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was reading through the entire story again the other day, and I realized I used Katniss's "I'll allow it," line three times. But I really like it each time it appears, so I'm just going to leave it that way. She just does a whole lot of allowing of things in this story.
> 
> I got a great response to the idea of outtakes after the last chapter, but only one or two actual prompts. So: If there is a part of this story you'd like to see expanded, or a scene not shown in the main fic that you'd like to see depicted, please let me know. You can leave a review on FFn, or a comment on AO3, or send me an ask on Tumblr. All three will accept anonymous submissions, if that's your thing. I need to know what to write!
> 
> One more regular chapter left after this. A brief glimpse of post-war Panem.


	7. Victory plus 10

Victory plus 10

The spring breeze was cool against his face, a welcome change from the stuffy air of the train car. The warm afternoon sun helped take the chill out of the air. He knew that the wind this time of year tended to blow in from the east, and he remembered which watering holes had blinds to the east of them so they could only be hunted in the mornings.

However, none of this knowledge helped Gale Hawthorne navigate the unfamiliar streets of District 12.

He had seen plans before the rebuilding began, understandably curious about the future of the district. But he didn't spend enough time here to really learn the new layout. Catnip would try to explain it to him, and he'd remember for a while, but after a month back home he'd forget again, the details lost in the sea of issues he had to deal with every day from his office in District 2.

Just after the war when plans were drawn up for the rebuilding of District 12, making the new district layout as different from the old as they could had been a deliberate choice. No new streets covered old ones, or even paralleled them. Certainly no building plots were aligned with the old district. Nobody could claim that the new grocery stood on the same ground as the old florists, or that the new butcher's stood over the old bakery. It was impossible to see the old Twelve by looking at the new. Even the train station was at a different place along the tracks than the old. District 12 was a monument to the idea of looking forward, not backward.

Luckily for Gale, District 12 was still smaller than any other in Panem, and finding his way to the town square was not difficult. But when he finally found the town bakery, he found it closed up, with a sign in the front window that read, "It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon! Go spend some time with your family!" On the ground under the sign was a small stack of tightly wrapped bread loaves for sale and a bowl full of coins where people had left their payment.

Gale shook his head. Only in District 12 could the baker get away with something like that. Even with the new medicine factory that had opened several years earlier, there were still less than two thousand people living in Twelve according to the last population report he'd seen. Everybody still knew everybody. Certainly Gale would never see this sort of thing in Two; both the bread and the coins would be gone before the baker had finished turning his back.

Gale made his way across town once again, finding the unfamiliar path to a very familiar destination. Some things just couldn't be moved when redesigning the district. He found the Meadow right where it had always been, and there he found his quarry.

The baker sat against a tree near the edge of the Meadow. His wife was in front of him, her back leaned against his chest, with both of their hands clasped together over her stomach. They both had soft smiles on their faces as they watched the antics of their children playing in the tall grass. It was an idyllic vision of family. It practically belonged on one of the propaganda posters promoting Panem's post-war rebirth.

Gale paused a safe distance away. After all these years, the spike of jealousy he felt when he saw Katniss and Peeta together like this was like an old friend. He knew it was irrational, that he had chosen his life and Katniss had chosen hers. Deep down he knew that this would have happened anyway, that he would always have chosen to do the work for Panem that he did in District 2 and Katniss would never have chosen to live anywhere but District 12, and that Peeta Mellark ultimately had nothing to do with those choices.

But the part of him that was still an angry 20-year-old rejected these more mature thoughts. He wanted to be the one leaning down to whisper playfully into Katniss's ear. He wanted to be the one to make her smile, and make her laugh. He wanted to be the one she turned her lips up toward, waiting for a kiss.

Gale shook his head, forcibly clearing his thoughts. Just because he spent his young adulthood wanting that didn't mean that he still wanted that now, he reminded himself. He had his job in Two, and Katniss had her family in Twelve, and that was the way things were.

Once he had control of his treacherous thoughts, he resumed his walk and approached the couple. "You think you can quit work early just cause you own the place? I had to walk across the whole district _twice_ looking for you two," he said once he was close enough to be heard.

"Gale!" Katniss called out in surprise. She jumped up from the ground and ran over to give him a quick hug hello. "You should have let us know you were coming, we could have met you at the station."

"But then it wouldn't have been a surprise," he said.

Katniss gave him a knowing look. "More like you would have had to plan your travel more than ten minutes ahead of time, you mean."

Gale was saved from having to make a reply by Peeta's approach. "Hey, Gale," he said, and the two men shook hands. "Prim and Rye have missed you."

"Oh, and you haven't?" Gale teased. Katniss socked him in the arm.

The three talked like the old friends they were as they watched the kids playing in the Meadow. It didn't make sense to Gale at first when they named their children after the lost family members whose memory always brought them so much pain. But over the years since Prim's birth he could see the change in them. The joy they found in their children had helped them rediscover the joy of their lost siblings, helped them to move past the bad memories and focus on the good. To be honest he envied them for that: Even living among death in a murdered district, these two had moved on from the war, moved on from lost siblings, in ways that Gale himself was still struggling to.

He shifted his attention away from his own dark thoughts and back to the kids. He had no idea what they were actually doing, they both seemed to be trying to catch the other while also trying to escape the other. Somehow he was sure it made perfect sense to them, though. Prim's dark tresses spilled around her shoulders as she ran, loose from the braid she normally wore her hair in - "Just like Mommy's!" she proudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen. Rye had lost some baby fat since the last time Gale saw him, and was starting to grow into the same stocky frame as his father.

People in other districts wouldn't understand, bringing children to play on a graveyard. When the initial cleanup began, the Meadow had been the largest open area that wasn't covered in rubble. It was the obvious place to bury the bodies recovered during cleanup. The bits and pieces of thousands of unrecognizable bodies, buried together in a mass grave near what had once been the dividing line between town and Seam. A few years later when the field began to grow green again despite no one having seeded it, it became a symbol for the rebirth of the whole district.

One of his colleagues from Two had once asked Gale why the folks in Twelve saw the mass grave as a sign of new life, while at the same time they actively worked to obscure those deaths with the new district design. He had had no answer for her; it just felt right to them.

"So I assume you heard?" Katniss asked after a brief lull in the conversation.

Gale shrugged uncomfortably, feeling somewhat sheepish that they hadn't had the chance to tell him themselves. "My mom still talks to your mom. She told me the other day, and I wanted to come offer my congratulations in person."

Peeta had the same dumb smile on his face Gale remembered from the first two times. Katniss shifted her weight from one foot to the other and began to unconsciously rub her stomach, which still wasn't showing yet. "We went to Four for a checkup with my mom last weekend. It's a boy."

"That's great," Gale said. "So who're you going to name this one after? Your dad?"

Katniss screwed up her face. "No. That'd be too weird. Raising a kid with my dad's name? No."

Gale thought for a moment. "You had another brother, right?" he directed at Peeta.

Katniss and Peeta exchanged a quick look, hers questioning, his encouraging. "Actually, we've been talking about it," she said. "And we were wondering, um, we'd like to ask…" She faltered again, and turned back to her husband, who smoothly took over.

"We've talked it over, and if it's okay with you, we'd like to name him Vick."

Gale's throat closed up on him. Vick. He didn't often let himself think of his youngest brother. Vick, who spent years jealous of Gale and Rory's service in combat squads, who had never been prouder than when he was finally assigned to one himself. Vick, who was dedicated and eager to contribute and always did what he was told and received several posthumous medals after the Capitol fell. Gale didn't attend the ceremony, having fled the city and taken out his grief on remaining pockets of Peacekeepers holding out in Two, but Katniss and Hazelle had assured him that Thirteen had done a fine job honoring those who died in the final push.

Hazelle still had the medals. Gale could hardly stand to look at them. What use were plaques and commendations when his brother was dead? They meant about as much to him as the medal of valor the Capitol had given him when his father died, which he had sold as scrap metal a week later.

He felt a hand on his arm, and it pulled him from his dark thoughts. Katniss wore a look of concern on her face, the kind she normally reserved for her husband and children. "If you don't-"

She was cut off there, because the kids had paused in their game long enough to notice their parents' new companion. "Uncle Gale!" Prim cried out, followed closely by her brother's less-well-enunciated echo, as they both ran over to greet the new arrival. The kids' enthusiasm helped improve his mood, and he dropped to one knee so he could meet them on their level and pulled each into a one-armed hug. "Hey, squirts," he said around the lump in his throat.

"How about we let Uncle Gale breathe, huh?" Peeta said, nudging his daughter back a bit. The kids relented and took a step back. Gale was struck, as he often was, by what weird combinations of their parents the two kids were. Prim had her mother's skeptical, penetrating gaze, but it came from her father's big blue eyes. Rye was reserved and taciturn like his mother, but with a quiet happiness about him that was much more reminiscent of his father.

As they began walking back to the bakery, Prim began excitedly chattering about seemingly everything she had done since Gale had last seen her - pictures she had painted, books she had read, her new favorite song, her _new_ new favorite song, how her hunting lessons were going, the time she got to measure out the flour for the Colemans' toasting loaf…

Prim didn't get her outgoing nature from either of her parents, who were both rather private people. That was all her own. Even Posy hadn't been this chipper when she was a little girl. But then, Posy had lived a much different life. Crammed into a tiny, cold house with four other people. Her father already dead by the time she was born. Never a full belly, not for one single day of her life. Prim, this Prim, had never known a single one of those hardships. This Rye had never known what it was to fear your own parent, had never had his childhood innocence warped by growing up across the square from the whipping post. And this Vick would never know any of those things either, Gale realized.

"And you have to try some of Rye's cookies," the girl continued, oblivious to Gale's dark thoughts. "He iced them all by himself, with just a little help from Daddy."

Gale laughed at the girl's contradictory explanation. "All by yourself, with just a little help from your dad, huh?" he asked the boy, who rewarded him with a nod and a bashful smile. "That's good. I like your mom and dad well enough, but I really came here for the cookies."

"You have to have some of my stew, too, Uncle Gale!" Prim said.

"You made stew?" Gale asked, wondering which parent she took after in the kitchen.

"Prim shot the squirrel for tonight's stew," Katniss said with obvious pride in her voice. "It was her first kill."

"You're teaching her to hunt already?" Gale asked. He belatedly remembered that "hunting lessons" was one of the things the girl had mentioned earlier when he hadn't really been paying attention. He turned back to Prim, who was surely too young to be shooting things. "You shot a squirrel?"

Prim nodded. "Mommy said I can only shoot little things like squirrels and rabbits with my little bow, but when I'm bigger I can use the big bow and shoot deers and bears!"

"Just deer," Katniss said. "What did I say to do if you ever see a bear in the woods?"

"Climb a tree as high as I can," the girl recited.

"That's right," Katniss said. She bent down and gave the girl a kiss on the top of her head.

Gale was momentarily struck silent by the exchange. It made him think of his younger days, learning snares from his father. His father had been a stern, quiet man, but Gale remembered the obvious pride he had displayed the first time Gale had correctly replicated one of his snares, the first time one of Gale's snares caught something, the first time Gale improved one of their snare designs.

"Even in the Seam, a man with the right skills can take care of his family," his father had told him. "That should be your number one priority in life. Always take care of your family." And Gale always had. Through starvation and bombings and war. Until Vick.

"You know, the first time I ever met your mother, she was using a smaller bow herself."

"Really?" Prim asked, her eyes wide with wonder at the idea that her mother had even been any different from the woman she knew.

"Oh yeah," Gale said. "She taught me how to shoot, just like she's teaching you."

Prim turned back to her mother. "Did you teach Uncle Gale how to shoot a bow?"

"I did," Katniss confirmed. "And you want to know a secret?" She leaned down conspiratorially, but still spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. "You're a much better student than he was."

Prim beamed at the praise. Peeta and Katniss chuckled at Gale's expense. "You weren't my mother, I didn't actually have to listen to you," Gale tried to defend himself.

"Only if you wanted to learn," Katniss jabbed back.

"I learned eventually," Gale insisted.

As they finally approached the bakery and the conversation continued, Gale could feel himself relaxing. This is what they had fought for. Carefree children, with no reapings in their future, and no mining shifts, and no floggings, and no hangings. And no hunger. These kids had never known hunger for a day in their lives, not real hunger, not like he and Katniss had. Gale could remember a time when he had hated the merchants for their well-fed lives, but even the poorest in District 12 were now more reliably fed than most merchants had been in the old days. Catnip's kids were growing up in a freaking bakery, of all places. These kids lived in a whole new world compared to the one he had known, and he couldn't be anything other than thankful.

"We're gonna eat my stew! We're gonna eat my stew!" Prim was practically chanting by the time they were headed upstairs to the apartment over the new bakery.

"Nobody's eating anything until you two get cleaned up. You look like you've got half the Meadow all over you," Peeta said.

"But Dad-"

"What's the most important thing to do before we work with food?" Peeta cut the girl off.

Prim huffed out an exasperated sigh that made her look exactly like her mother. "Make sure our hands are clean," she recited.

"And?" her father prompted.

"Working with food includes eating it."

"That's right. Now, both of you, wash." Peeta directed the kids to the sink with a hand on each of their shoulders. Gale hung back with Katniss.

"Rye doesn't talk much," Gale said.

"He's still learning," Katniss said. "Plus it's hard to get a word in around Prim."

"That's for sure," Gale said with a laugh. The two of them settled on a couch and watched as Peeta encouraged the kids to change into clean clothes by splashing them both with water. Soon all three disappeared to the bedrooms on the third floor.

Gale sat back and shook his head. "You done good, Catnip. Seems like you two have got it all figured out."

Katniss scoffed. "Hardly. Come back in twenty years to see how this all turns out. There's still plenty of time to scar them for life."

"Nah, you two are great with them," Gale said.

"So how long can you stay?" Katniss asked.

Gale stopped and thought for a moment. "You know, now that you mention it, I think I may get going sooner than I planned. I think I'm going to go see my mother."

Katniss raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Gale took a deep breath. "You know I've never even looked at any of those medals they gave Vick? I think… I think I want to read his commendations now."

Katniss nodded. She understood what he was thinking. It was just like Peeta had told her all those years ago: At some point the pain of a loss becomes bearable, and once it does then you can revisit the good memories without drowning in the pain. "He was a good kid," she said softly.

"No, he was a good man," Gale said. He looked up at his old friend. "He will be a good kid."

Katniss's lips quirked up into a smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Gale confirmed. "But if you're going to call him Vick then he can't come out looking like a merchant. No floppy blond hair this time."

"No promises," Katniss said with a smile. "I was convinced Prim would be blonde."

"Pretty sure they could fix that for you in the new Capitol," Gale teased.

Katniss glowered at him. "You keep talking about 'fixing' my kids and I won't let you see them anymore." Gale held up his hands in surrender.

At dinner that night, Gale was sure to be very complimentary towards Prim's succulent squirrel. And of Rye's cookie icing skills, which were not quite up to the task of coating a cookie with frosting but nobody pointed that out. Not even Prim. She really did remind him of Katniss as a big sister.

After dinner, Prim insisted on singing him her _new new_ new favorite song, and Gale discovered that Rye was the one who had inherited the beautiful singing voice, even if he still had trouble pronouncing some of the words.

They played a round of games before bedtime, Prim and Rye teaming up to wipe the floor with each adult.

And as Gale laid down to sleep that night in the apartment above the bakery, in the spare bedroom that would soon belong to his dead brother's namesake, he didn't feel jealous at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was my first time writing toastbabies, and I might have gotten a little carried away with it. Whatever. If too much toastbaby cuteness bothers you, then you and I are very different people. :)
> 
> This is the end of the line for this story, but not for this universe. I got several prompts for outtakes after the last chapter, but I'll always take more! You can send your request as a comment on AO3, or a review on FFn, or an ask on Tumblr. All three will accept anonymous submissions. I need ideas, people!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading this story, my second ever completed WIP. Particular thanks to those of you who began reading in 2013 and actually came back after I didn't update for seventeen months. You're good people.


End file.
